College Board - Real Talk
The College Board is is a non-profit organization that enables all students to own their future through a suite of programs. We partnered with the College Board to create Real Talk, a career and college exploration program designed to connect Black students with Black professionals and representatives from colleges and access organizations across the country.
Real Talk was a new sub-brand of BigFuture by the College Board that had zero brand recognition, and virtually no brand identity. Fufu + Grits was tasked with a rebrand that matches their audience in an authentically Black way.
Year: November 2022
Role: Brand Designer, Art Direction, Curated Photobank
Project Concentration: Rebrand Identity, Brand Guide, Campaigns, Visual Language, Art Direction, Social Media Templates, Presentation Template, Copy Editing
Photography: stock image sites and museum digital archives
Key Roles: Lead Art Director & Brand Strategy: Devyn Taylor
Keeping It Real
In order to create a brand identity that truly resonated with the target audience, we consulted with dozens of upperclassmen high schoolers, recent graduates, and college freshmen. With them, we pressure-tested our messaging, and video content, and dug deep into how our branding work would be received.
Logo
The Real Talk logo is a hand-drawn typeface that takes inspiration from the geometric forms and unexpected accents of the 90's. The "RT" logo symbol is a secondary element that designed for touchpoints where the audience is familiar with the brand.
Preliminary Logo Sketches
Final Logo
Primary Mark
Secondary Mark
ICON
TYPOGRAPHY
Real Talk typography uses the Montserrat family, a geometric sans-serif typeface that balances the stylistic, hand-drawn logo.
GRAPHIC ELEMENTS
To create visual interest, we created additional graphics for Real Talk including chrome forms, decorative stars, gradients, and a rule + RT symbol.
IMAGERY
Because Real Talk wanted a brand that could scale, we were tasked with creating a photo bank for use in future assets. The bank focused on lifestyle photography, featuring a gamut of emotions, experiences, and interests that young students possess.
